Religion In Our Democracy - March 2013

I went to an Orthodox Jewish afterschool program until my early teens. During that time I learned the moral values of my religion and heritage, about its history, and about the challenges of being a religious minority. I also was of the age in which I watched live on TV as the homeland of my ancestors was attacked several times by its enemies.

So it is very hard for me to understand how I, and our elected officials, are not supposed to allow religious training and heritage to influence our positions on various issues which face our country every day. After all, we are reminded of the importance of God every time we cite our Pledge of Allegiance, look at our money, or watch a new President be sworn in holding a Bible.

Our founding fathers expected that religion would play an important part in our lives which is why the First Amendment to our Constitution clearly states Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion.

As Thomas Jefferson is often quoted, however, there is also a need to “build a wall of separation between Church and State” which is why that First Amendment also states “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any Office or Public Trust under the United States.”

The American voter sometimes thinks otherwise. Just ask the Catholics who never had one of their own become President until John F Kennedy. Prior to JFK, our Presidents were mostly Episcopalian or Presbyterian. And tell former Presidential candidate Mitt Romney that his Mormon faith did not affect some voters. And will a person of Jewish faith ever be President?

During the Kennedy campaign it was often asked and rumored about what role the Pope would have in the governance of our country since the function of the Pope often includes being the final judge on morality to members of his faith.  Of course, it turned out that Kennedy had many moral failings for which the Pope obviously had no control but Kennedy often said his religious beliefs guided him in his tough decision making regarding the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The day to day laws of our democracy have always been based in part of religious teachings such as the Ten Commandments. In 2011 a judge in Dixie County, FL, even had them conveniently displayed on a granite monument at the entrance to this courthouse before a Federal Court required it to be removed. I believe that case is still on appeal and headed for the US Supreme Court which has often allowed the display of the Ten Commandments on government grounds – including its own building – if they are displayed with other types of inspirational messages guiding human behavior.

The declining influence of religion in our democracy has also become an underlying motivator for the increased involvement of the so-called religious right in elections and politics. Here in South Florida, Anita Bryant infamously formed the Save Our Children campaign in 1977 to protest a Dade County ordinance barring discrimination based on sexual preferences.  In 1989, the late Pat Robertson formed the Christian Coalition to promote candidates and legislation to its liking. To this day, that coalition and others like it have a strong influence on candidates on the state and national level.

While I may not share all of the beliefs of the religious right, I strongly applaud them for being concerned enough about the wrong direction that I believe our great country is heading that they are keeping up the pressure on elected officials to remember our country’s guiding principles. The liberal media and anti-religious groups continue to advocate positions which I believe go against the lessons and morality I learned many years ago in my aforementioned religious school sessions.

Silent religious prayers should be allowed – if not required - before the beginning of each school day so that our kids can be reminded of the importance of religion in their lives. I believe the ending of prayers in public schools in the early 1960’s is one reason why the moral fiber of our society has collapsed in so many ways.

The United States was founded to provide its citizens with the opportunity to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. I believe being able to do so involves an understanding and application of the many guiding principles of Christianity, Judaism, and other religions like Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam into our daily lives and as an influence on our laws while respecting the limitation placed on religion in our Constitution and its Amendments.

Debt Limit Disaster - February 2013

"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government cannot pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. ...Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that 'the buck stops here'. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and Grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better."

Who said that? Former Republican Congressman Ron Paul? Congressman, and former Romney running mate, Paul Ryan? Radio personality Rush Limbaugh? Or perhaps former President John F. Kennedy?

If you guessed Barack Obama you would be correct. Our current President made those remarks in 2006 on the floor of the United States Senate just as he was kicking off his first Presidential campaign into gear.  And now 7 years later, he wants to raise that same debt limit without any hesitation or desire to compromise with Congress. Just as he bluffed his way into higher taxes when dealing with the so-called Fiscal Cliff in early January. A deal that raised tax rates for the first time in 20 years and even increased government spending rather than dealing with the more important issue of cutting government spending.

Obama has said that being President puts him in a different position for understanding the importance of the United States being able to pay its bills and creditors.  As if the nearly 6 TRILLION dollars in new debit already amassed by Obama in the past 4 years has taught him anything about fiscal responsibility!

Some on the left actually believe that the amount of the debt limit is irrelevant as long as we stay current with interest payments. Imagine telling your teenage child you will give him or her a VISA card with an unlimited credit line as long as he or she can pay the minimum monthly payment.  Then again, I would not be surprised if some reading this column have actually done so.

Frankly the problem with our national debt ceiling today is not Obama. It is not Congress. And it is not the media. It is the economically illiterate American people. There is an old saying attributed to Alexander Hamilton, one of our country’s founders, that the “masses are assess”.  Unless and until Americans who vote for our government representatives understand basic economics, they will continue to elect politicians who simply borrow and spend to maintain power.

Sadly the continuing spiral of borrowing and spending can only lead to a financial disaster in the foreseeable future. But why should the typical illiterate voter care?  Because at some point federal funds will go mainly to paying interest on those borrowed funds rather than being available to sustain government aid programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and Obamacare.  Because at some point, our creditors will stop lending to us and we may have no federal funds to pay for anything. 

To me, it seems that most voters and politicians have no rational understand of how much money $16,000,000,000,000 in debt really represents. It is just a bunch of zeroes to them. But those zeroes currently add up to more than $ 53,000 that each citizen of the United States owes to pay for our federal government’s irresponsible fiscal management to date.

If you ask the typical American voter about the current economic condition of Greece or Spain and ask them how those conditions developed, most voters will have no idea that those governments borrowed to excess to pay for entitlement programs and a fat bureaucracy of government employees. And it is doubtful that those voters will know that Greece and Spain are implementing cost saving programs which have resulted in either riots in the streets or in public employee strikes on a frequent basis.

Will our United States eventually succumb to similar civil disobedience if Congress and Obama do not get our fiscal matters into shape? We have already witnessed similar protests around the country as state governments have attempted to rein in their spending and public worker expenses.  I have no doubt that the slim majority of voters who elected Obama for another 4 years will be the first to show their disdain when his government giveaways have to be slashed in the years ahead.

As I wind down my days as the On The Right Columnist for DRW Magazine, I can only look back over the past 8 years with regret that I was not able to convince enough voters to elect fiscally responsible local, state, and federal representatives. So now it is time for me to focus on my own personal and family financial goals and prepare for the rough years of economic turbulence ahead. I urge you to do the same.

2013 Predictions - January 2013

The coming year will be a very telling time period for the future of our country. The 2012 election left Washington with the Republicans in control of the House of Representatives and the Democrats in control of the White House and the Senate. Both claim voter support for their positions.

As I mentioned in last month’s column, a slim majority of our country voted last November for a President intent on having a small percentage of our citizens pay even more for government aid and entitlements for the growing percentage of our country relying, in part, on Uncle Sam.

The question for our country, and my second prediction for 2013, is whether that slim majority’s vote is the new norm or was it just a vote against a Republican candidate who did not properly present his vision for our future. I choose the latter and predict the Republican brand will come back as voters experience the ramifications of President Obama’s economic and foreign policy decisions.

My first prediction for 2013 is that it is time for another voice From The Right to speak out on behalf of conservatives in DRW Magazine. I think my thoughts and positions are pretty well known and predictable after opining in this magazine throughout President Bush’s second term and President Obama’s first term. I look forward to providing my final words of wisdom next month.

As for the rest of 2013, I predict the following:

Economy

With tax rates increasing on high income individuals, on small businesses, on estates, and on savings and investments, the economy will sputter along in 2013 despite tremendous pent up demand for goods and services because the money will still not be there for individuals to afford those items. Continued easy money from the Federal Reserve will somewhat help the housing and auto industries as income starved consumers will still have low interest loans and leases available to them.  But the defense industry with its thousands of suppliers and the medical equipment industry will both retract this year causing a notable decrease in our nation’s GDP.

Unemployment will continue to drop slightly month over month as government jobs increases now that property tax revenues are again on the rise in most states. Business employment will remain mixed although I predict the ongoing shift to a part-time workforce will continue now that Obamacare has given economic incentives to do so.

Sadly, President Obama who has less of an understanding of economics than my kids, will continue to borrow 40 cents of every 1 dollar spent by the federal government. He will get political support from the media for agreeing to some “cuts” over 10 years that will be nothing more than an accounting trick. But most of those cuts will simply go to the burgeoning cost of Obamacare as insurance exchanges start ramping up later this year.

Domestic Policy

2013 will be another banner year for liberals as more states enact laws to legalize same sex marriages, Obama will push Congress to support the new dope laws in Colorado and Washington states, the faux battle over “women’s rights” will continue as the Supreme court hears another challenge to forcing employers to cover contraceptives, and an initially non-partisan effort on gun control will turn mean spirited as the country comes to terms with the tragic and tearful murder of innocent children in Newton, CT

Perhaps the biggest issue which our country will face in the coming year is how to finally deal with securing our country’s borders and figuring out a way for illegal immigrants to continue to contribute to our country without being sent home. I believe that children under 18 will be the first to be given a path to citizenship in 2013 while their parents and extended family members will have to wait until after the 2014 election for a solution to their status as the Republicans will never give immediate voting rights to 20 million illegal aliens and Democrats will keep pushing the issue for political gain until they again control the House, the Senate, and the White House.

Foreign Policy

I will give Hillary Clinton credit for putting her personal health and life at risk on behalf of our country as she has traveled to more foreign countries more times than any recent Secretary of State I can remember. But I believe her positions – and those of her expected successor Senator John Kerry – will continue to be bad for our country in 2013. When the Egyptian citizens recently protested their new Muslim Brotherhood President Morsi’s efforts to dictate policies and laws at his own discretion, Hillary said nothing. Just as she and President Obama said nothing when Iranian citizens protested the re-election of Ahmadinejad four years ago.

Our foreign policy under Obama and Clinton/Kerry will continue to put our country at risk of being marginalized on the world stage when it comes to stopping Iran from getting a bomb, from letting the wrong side take over Syria, and from stopping the UN’s push to Palestinian statehood with Jerusalem as its capital.

Happy New Years to you and yours! May your 2013 be as fruitful and enjoyable as possible!

Partisan Nation Part II - December 2012

“Can’t we all just get along” is the famous quote with which I concluded my column last month on our partisan nation. The late Rodney King, who spoke those words after the Los Angeles riot 20 years ago, would be sad today to see that no, we are not getting along.

Last month’s Presidential election told an important story about the current and future path of our country. Based on that vote, we are currently not a nation that cares about being the economic engine of the world. Instead a slim majority of our citizenry is more concerned about perceived economic fairness and redistribution here in the United States.

Our nation is also not currently concerned about protecting and enforcing our Constitution and its unalienable rights. Instead that slim majority of our citizenry seems to be okay with a federal government that tramples on our rights to privacy, personal liberty, and the rule of law.

Citizens in 20 states in our union have actually started petition drives, since President Obama was elected to another four year term, to potentially have their states secede from our United States of America.

While it is doubtful their secession efforts will succeed, it is exciting to see so many citizens following the words of our Declaration of Independence that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

While the Vietnam War, Watergate, and Monica Lewinsky’s oral fixation certainly caused major rifts in our country, nobody has been as destructive to our citizens getting along than has President Obama. His 2012 election strategy played to the worst fears of blacks, Latinos, single women with and without children, and to young voters by attacking Mitt Romney for positions allegedly which would negatively affected those groups. There were no optimistic “Shining City on the Hill” comments from Obama. In fact, he ended his campaign by telling his minions that voting was the best revenge. Revenge against what?

There has been much talk that the current and future demographics of our country have set a pace for permanent structural change in our country. I will not argue that demographics are changing. In fact I have been educating my friends and family for years that our country is never again going to be like or look like it was in the fictional Happy Days and Leave It To Beaver eras. To me, demographic change is nothing to fear or despise as our country was built on evolving demographics. It is something to celebrate.

But those of us on the right do not believe those demographic groups voted for President Obama because they want the United States to go down the path of more socialist Latin American and European countries despite the Democrats again believing they have a mandate for more entitlements and onerous taxes and regulations. Because those groups also voted to keep Republicans in control of the United States House of Representatives which is the people’s chamber in Congress.

I believe that a majority within those demographic groups understand that our country was not founded to provide economic fairness to all but rather to provide a free and fair chance at economic success. And that our nation was not founded so a powerful federal government could entrap its citizens in growing bureaucracies and entitlement programs as envisioned by Obama in his “Life Of Julia” video campaign which depicted cradle-to-crave government involvement.

I believe that these demographic groups and all other Americans will soon be looking for a national political figure who will come forward and again prove that government programs and entitlements are not the answer to a successful future for our democracy. And that a bright and prosperous future for their children and grandchildren cannot and will not come from government but from an entrepreneurial marketplace.

I am confident that political figure will come from the Republican Party. And I am hopeful that person will also showcase to these demographic groups that my Republican Party is the same in principle as it was when Lincoln supported black Americans when they needed it most in the 1800s and 1960’s; that it is a party of diversity with the likes of US Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, Governors Susana Martinez, Bobby Jindal, Nikki Haley, and Brian Sandoval; and that it is still the party of Ronald Reagan who united this country after a faltering economy caused by an ineffective Democratic President  not unlike the current occupant of the White House.

Partisan Nation Part 1 - November 2012

No matter who wins this year’s Presidential election, there will be ongoing partisan rhetoric coming from both sides in Congress, in the media, and across the fruited plains. 

 

If Mitt Romney wins, those on the left will blame alleged voter suppression rather than blame Obama for not being able to defend his record for the last four years and for not convincing voters of his future plans.

If President Obama wins another four years in the White House, those on the right will certainly blame biased media and liberal debate moderators for their overwhelming efforts to focus attention on Romney trivia and avoid making Obama’s record the centerpiece of the election.

The bigger question regardless of who wins is why has the United States become so partisan and angry and when did this attitude become set in concrete?

Was it the effect of the Great Depression in the 1930’s when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt reacted by expanding and strengthening the federal safety net while perfecting a populist agenda which would set the stage for a divided country in the years ahead?

Was it President Richard Nixon in the 1970’s who tried to evade and cover up illegal activities in his political campaign and almost caused a constitutional crisis in our country?

Was it decades of Walter Cronkite on CBS and Chet Huntley on NBC opining from the left while supposedly presenting the daily news facts as America was still dealing with civil rights, the Vietnam War, and a bourgeoning welfare state?

Was it the attempt by President Ronald Reagan in 1987 to nominate Robert Bork to the Supreme Court which became the first time a court pick became so divisive with organized partisan politics for and against him?

Or was it the Republican investigations of President Bill Clinton in the 1990’s for his lying under oath about sexual misconduct and for his questionable White Water real estate investments in Arkansas?

In my opinion, it was none of the above. Our country has been partisan since the founding of our nation. The divisiveness began almost immediately as arguments ensued as to the role of the new federal government relative to the individual states.  There were the Federalists led by Alexander Hamilton and John Adams. And then there were the Democratic-Republicans led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison who believed in states’ rights.

The election of 1800 between Adams and Jefferson became the first ugly partisan campaign in our nation’s history with Jefferson allegedly hiring a “hatchet man” to spread rumors about Adams. Jefferson won. Years later the Federalist Party would fade away while the Democratic-Republican Party would eventually morph into the Democratic Party of today. The Republican Party would emerge again in the 1850’s with President Lincoln being its first victor to the White House.

Flash forward to this recent Presidential election of 2012. You had Obama’s campaign calling Romney a felon, for being responsible for the death of the wife of a former Bain subsidiary employee, and for being a hater of Big Bird and women. I found Obama’s campaign sad and pathetic and was not surprised to see our Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz deep in it. Likewise Republican operatives went to the gutter to keep public attention on Obama’s relationship with his anti-American religious mentor Reverend Wright and on his murky path to college and law school for which no transcripts have ever been released.

Today, Americans cannot even come together to discuss the tragic murder of an American Ambassador in Libya without spinning for or against how President Obama handled it. And rather than working together to help the 28 million unemployed citizens, their fate has become a political hot potato based on the weekly and monthly reports.

More concerning to me is reading social media like Twitter, Facebook, and blogs on various news sites and seeing the vitriol between those on the left and on the right. It is the 1% against the 99%, blacks versus white, non-religious versus the religious, and even men versus women! 

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson are probably turning in their graves as they see the country which they risked their lives to help form going down the path of social and economic destruction.

As Los Angeles riot victim Rodney King once said, “Can’t we all just get along?”